So far under the leadership of surgeon and Gifted Hands author Ben Carson, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has shown a keen interest in avoiding making housing more attainable and equitable for all, at a time when finding an affordable apartment is getting harder and harder. Given the details of HUD's funding cutbacks for the 2019 fiscal year, outlined in the Trump administration’s budget this week, this passive approach to HUD's organizational mission is about to get even easier.

Overall, the initial proposal calls for an $8.8 billion cut to HUD’s operating budget, a funding decrease of 18.3 percent from 2017 operating levels. Though a later addendum seems to have added $2 billion back into HUD’s budget, the cut remains significant.

The Community Development Block Grant—one of the longest continuously run programs at HUD—which gives local governments discretionary funds for everything from the construction of homeless youth shelters to delivering groceries to the elderly, will also see its budget for FY 2019 slashed to zero because, according to the Trump administration, it has "failed to demonstrate effectiveness." This would leave states and local communities on their own to fund such projects.

In terms of rental assistance programs provided by HUD, the budget proposes an 11.2 percent decrease, to $33.8 billion. In an effort to ensure the program’s solvency in the face of an ongoing affordability crisis, HUD will ask for economically vulnerable tenants to pay a greater share of their rent. By the budget’s logic, raising the housing cost contribution floor "for work-able households" (excluding those who are elderly or disabled) from 30 percent to 35 percent of one’s income will provide those most at risk for eviction with “an incentive to increase their earnings.”

Housing affordability advocates, such as National Low Income Housing president and CEO Diane Yentel, are frustrated by a budget that seems to ignore the increasing levels of inequality in the rental market. "President Trump is making clear, in no uncertain terms, his willingness to increase evictions and homelessness," she said in a statement. "The Administration callously disregards its responsibility to the millions of households living in deteriorating public housing and to low-income people and communities working to recover and rebuild after disasters by eliminating critical resources for public housing, rental housing construction, and community development."

For his part, Carson framed the reform efforts as a move toward “self-sufficiency.”

It’s unclear whether Carson’s plan to move public housing to “more sustainable platforms” would involve uploading people to the cloud or creating Section 8 housing out of Egyptian pyramids. It is clear, however, that these funding cutbacks will make life more difficult for those already struggling to pay their rent.

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